Being male, I spent an eon – ie 15 minutes – looking through the various jackets and trousers I had trying to figure out what I could wear to a gala event that had specified evening wear, but not what kind. The flatmates made helpful suggestions – although for the life of me, I will still never understand why that jacket should go with a specific pair of trousers, and not just any old pair of trousers that are the same colour. It was thus decided that a cream linen jacket and trouser combo with a linen dark shirt would be perfect for the occasion – my suggestion of the velvet smoking jacket was nixed on the grounds I didn’t have velvet trousers to match. Fashion, eh?

So there I am all dressed and ready to go, and I make the mistake of putting on a Bond film while waiting for my colleague and taxi. So by the time we pull up to City Hall, I’m half expecting a huge red carpet, press photographers everywhere and dusky maidens at every turn – rather like the time when I attended the Dancestar 2000 awards for professional reasons, which was a bit of a mind-switch.

Alas, aside from the huge Greek-esque steps leading up to the main doors, there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about it. There wasn’t even any security, or any requirement to show my ticket – we just walked in, grabbed a champagne and scoped the joint, while my colleague told me about her innumerable shopping trips over the weekend to find the right top, pair of shoes etc. — I’d just gone into my cupboard and found a pair of black shoes I never knew I had. Along with seven other pairs of shoes i never knew I had.

The 90-minute tribute show was quite interesting and oddly bilingual – too much English spoken, I thought, to be honest. I did sit there most of the time thinking that this/that would be great for the website.

Afterwards, it was 90 minutes of looking around at the cream of Welsh media/cyfryngau talent supping on some white wine and dodging the TV/press cameras going round trying to find the interesting people. Pretty much like most of the entertainment/social functions I worked/attended during my London entertainment career of 1999/2000.

To be honest, on social functions like these, I’d much rather be working them than being a minor guest – then I’d have something to concentrate on than analysing and observing until the wine makes a mushery of my inane thoughts.